I'm conscious about asking people for money, it's not something that I like to do, but I want to post this just to make people aware...

The law of dialectics demands that we have an anti-thesis against which to develop our thesis. In other words we need an enemy.

To my mind the two most noble enemies are ignorance and bad health.

With this in mind the goal of defeating aging stands as a noble aim, albeit with consequences we can't imagine yet.

There are at least two main approaches to ending aging, one is to redesign the metabolism of humans so that they live longer, an approach that will likely not come to fruition for at least another hundred years. The other is to deal with the accumulation of damage that occurs in humans as they get older and that many believe is the primary source of aging. This approach promises to end aging potentially within our lifetime, but receives very little funding with most of the limited (but growing) researchers in the field concentrate on the first approach.

The biggest advocate of the second approach, which as I said has the potential to make those of us already living live for hundreds if not thousands of years, is the SENS foundation.

They have a list of the various damages that need to be dealt with to reverse aging and are working to provide therapies that tick each of these off the list.

The form of damage that is closest to being dealt with is the accumulation of senescent cells. Clearing these was just this year proved to increase health span and median life expectancy. Basically, the mice they tested it on stayed younger for longer, increasing their median life span, but nor increasing the maximum life span. This could be seen as disappointing, since the aim was to increase maximum lifespan, however, even keeping people younger for longer has huge benefits.

SENS research relies largely on philanthropy to fund its aims. They have just launched a crowdfunding appeal to fund the next stage of developing the clearing senescent cells therapy.

If all goes well, the therapy should be available in the next five years meaning that we can all live younger well into our eighties.

They also point out that even if it only extends healthspan and not lifespan on its own, it has potential to be used in conjunction with stem cell therapy to increase actual lifespan.

As an aside, those worried about animal testing may note that these mice will probably do quite well out of the tests, living healthier for longer.

Anyway, I post this just for interest, it is entirely up to you what you do with the information, but it is good to be aware, as the conquering of the aging process promises to be one of the biggest revolutions in the near future.

The researchers and advocates of the Major Mouse Testing Program will be answering your questions in an /r/futurology AMA ("Ask Me Anything") event later today. The organization is presently raising funds via crowdfunding in order to run the first in a set of animal life span studies of senolytic drugs as a means to reduce the number of senescent cells in old tissues. The presence of such cells is one of the causes of aging, and a range of initiatives aimed at treatments are presently in the early stages of development. This is a still a very poorly funded area of research in comparison to its potential, however, which is why our continuing support is absolutely necessary if there is to be significant progress in the next few years:

Quote:

The Major Mouse Testing Program (MMTP) is an ambitious project of the International Longevity Alliance (ILA), featuring an international team of scientists and advocates testing therapies against aging decline. This experiment is is lead by world class stem cell researcher Dr. Alexandra Stolzing and was inspired by our scientific advisor and colleague Dr. Aubrey de Grey.

The Major Mouse Testing Program is seeking to speed up scientific progress in the field of regenerative medicine and biogerontology. After ILA experts conducted an analysis of delays preventing the development of life extension technologies, it was shown that a serious problem was the lack of robust animal data for the potential of different compounds to promote health and extend maximum lifespan. Without this data promising interventions cannot enter clinical trials and become available to the general public. The MMTP is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to address this issue.

For the first experiment we are testing a new class of drugs known as senolytics, these drugs have been shown to help seek out and destroy toxic senescent cells that accumulate with age and improve various aspects of health. We wish to see if senolytics can increase maximum lifespan in addition to healthspan. We have big plans for the future with combination testing of senolytics, stem cells and more to help speed up scientific progress. So go ahead and ask us anything!